Supernovae and superbursts triggered by dark matter clumps

Abstract

Cosmologies in which dark matter clumps strongly on small scales are unfavorable to terrestrial detectors that are as yet unexposed to the clumps. I show that subhectometer clumps could trigger thermonuclear runaways by scattering on nuclei in white dwarf cores (carbon and oxygen) and neutron star oceans (carbon), setting off type-Ia-like supernovae and x-ray superbursts, respectively. I consider two scenarios: “dark clusters” that are essentially microhalos and “long-range dark nuggets,” essentially macroscopic composites, with long-range Yukawa baryonic interactions that source the energy for igniting explosions. I constrain dark clusters, weighing between the Planck mass and asteroid masses, and long-range dark nuggets over a wider mass range spanning 40 orders of magnitude. These limits greatly complement searches proposed by myself and co-workers [] for scattering interactions of dark clumps in neutron stars, cosmic rays, and prehistoric minerals. Published by the American Physical Society 2024